Month: May 2017

Northampton Saints No 8 Louis Picamoles gave a shock to the team after signing a pre-contract agreement with Montpellier to rejoin it once the tour of France of South Africa will get over this summer.

Picamoles, joined Northampton leaving Toulouse signing the contract of three-years in 2016, and for five years he played in Montpellier until 2009. Now he is returning to his former club.

Altrad hhe tas confirmed this news and while confirming it, he said, “The team has signed a pre-contract with Louis Picamoles, so that should join the team as soon as the tour of France gets over. It is really important good for the national team to have a player of France playing in the Top 14.” Even the William Hill rugby betting didn’t see it coming, with Picamoles having been odds-on to stay at Northampton for another season.

In-order to take Picamoles on its team, Montpellier had paid a hefty fee, this is because Picamoles was voted the player of the year by the Northampton club and, according to Jim Mallinder director of Northampton in the contract of Picamoles, there was no release clause present and thus he could not be sold.

Mallinder on the joining of Picamoles when asked, he said “Picamoles has signed a contract for three-years with the team, and till now he has just finished the first year of his contract and there is no clause present in the contract of Louis that can let me go away. So, it is not possible that Louis can go anywhere else.” “Northampton is not a selling club, we all our good players to remain in the team.”

According to the reports, French Rugby Federation (FFR) is keen to sign Picamoles with their team on a unique central contract. However, after the end of France tour, it will get clear that from behalf of which team Picamoles will continue his game.

Something that is common is rumors that keep rising about movement of players between clubs which often turn out to be true or not.

The latest rumor doing the rounds is Dan Biggar of making for a move to this Aviva Premiership league club. This Wales pivot player might be targeted or the news might not have any base. As per information from Ospreys, they insist that there has been no contact from Northampton Saints to propose a move for the fly half player Dan Biggar.

The region and WRU ruled out possibilities of any move for Wales No 10 from the beginning of the season of Six Nations. However the Aviva Premiership club might be considering him to replace JJ Hanrahan. Hence, there was a recent rumor that a deal has been formed and Biggar would be heading out to be part of the Saints team at Franklin’s Gardens when his contract expires in the year 2018. The ospreys managing director has branded this as fake news.
He stated that there was a tweet where it was mentioned that Dan is signing up for the team, but this has not been brought to the attention of the team not has Northampton made any such announcement. The contract also has to be vetted by the WRU and Ospreys insists that Northampton has not approached them yet. There is some complication in Biggar’s contracts. That is because his contract is of the NDC category. This means that his contract is decided by the Welsh Rugby Union. They pick up sixty percent of the wages he earns and Ospreys picks up the remaining. It remains to be seen if there is any base to the rumors that have been going round. Even if the transfer does take place, how it is done remains to be seen.